The story of recreational sailing in Ireland goes back through such a long and very varied narrative that we’ve reached the stage where Centenaries should be something that we take effortlessly in our stride. Thus it says much for 2025 that, even in our special circumstances of an exceptionally long sailing inheritance being in evidence on every coastline and major lake, this very special year has given us much pause for thought with its appropriately varied Centenary commemorations.
FASTNET ROCK NON-NEGOTIABLE
The celebrations rang the changes between the low-key but deeply-felt Centenary of the John B Kearney designed-and-built (in Ringsend, Dublin) 39ft yawl Mavis in Maine, and the multi-faceted and often boisterous celebration of a hundred years of the Royal Ocean Racing Club and the Rolex Fastnet Race with it, with 451 boats in a very international fleet taking part in 2025 in an offshore classic in which the only remaining feature of the inaugural 1925 race is the continuing and non-negotiable use of the Fastnet Rock as the main turning point.
John B Kearney’s 1925-built Mavis making effortless speed with restorer Ron Hawkins on the helm in Maine.Photo: Benjamin Mendlowitz
Ireland’s historic input into this particular story is totally disproportionate to the numbers of entries and finishers we’ve had in the race over the years. But thanks to one of the original seven entries being Harry Donegan of Cork with his 17-ton 1898-built cutter Gull, we had a founding owner-skipper who kept his own entertaining log of the first race, who additionally was a prolific letter-writer to other participants, and whose generosity in taking the American sailor-writer Warwick Tompkins from a pierhead jump for the 1926 Race resulted in an admiring and eloquent pen-portrait that resonates down the ages to tell us much about one of Ireland’s greatest sailors.
Harry Donegan’s Gull. The fact that she was one of just seven boats in the first Fastnet Race of 1925 (finishing third) has kept Ireland in the forefront of the story.Photo: RCYC
ROYAL CORK YC LAUNCH PAD
Thus, it was appropriate that for many, the 2025 season started with the RORC/Fastnet Race Centenary Dinner in the Royal Cork’s own warm ambience in Crosshaven on 12th April. It was organised by Donal McClement, who was himself mentioned in the evening’s speechifying as having won Class IV in the ultra-storm-swept 1979 Fastnet by using the UFO 34 Black Arrow as an arrow to go straight through the mountainous seas, rather than being swept damagingly aside by the walls of water.
Fastnet Race 2007 overall winners Ger O’Rourke of Limerick and Commodore Donie Herraghty of Lough Ree YC at the Centenary Dinner in the Royal Cork.Photo: Robert Bateman
Others in Crosshaven included 2007 overall winner Ger O’Rourke of Limerick of the Cookson 50 Chieftain with his senior 2007 crewman, Lough Ree YC Commodore Donie Herraghty. It says much about Irish sailing that one of our Fastnet legends should be the Commodore of a lake yacht club which in turn has a history going back to 1770, but that’s how it is. And with Fastnet crews from as far back as 1967 getting together with Admirals past and present from both the Royal Cork YC and the RORC, the night of Saturday 12th April 2025 in Crosshaven provided a very special launch pad for an extraordinary year.
At the Centenary Dinner in Crosshaven in April were (left to right) Tim Carpenter (Commodore Royal Irish YC, organisers of 2025 Admirals Cup team), former RORC Commodore Michael Boyd of the RIYC, Admiral of RORC Janet Grosvenor, and John Bourke, former President of Irish Sailing Association and former Commodore, RORC. Photo: Robert Bateman
GREATER IMPORTANCE?
It’s a year which has provided us with the luxury of discussing whether the Centenary of Ireland’s significant input into the inauguration of the Fastnet Race is of greater importance than the Centenary of Conor O’Brien’s completion of his great voyage round the world south of the great Capes, but either way that too was celebrated.
PAINSTAKING RESEARCH
The miracle of it all is that thanks to the painstaking research and dogged determination of Gary Mac Mahon of Limerick, both of the vessels with which O’Brien was most closely associated are now sailing again, either in the re-built form of the 42ft Saoirse ketch from 1922 with which he circled the globe between June 20th 1923 and June 20th 1925, or the restored 1926-built 56ft ketch Ilen, which he designed for construction in Baltimore in West Cork to serve as the inter-island service vessel in the Falklands.
Saoirse in Falmouth Harbour in Cornwall in 1968. She was subsequently based in Iceland for a couple of years in the 1970s before voyaging to the Caribbean, where she was wrecked in post-hurricane conditions on a beach in Jamaica in 1979.Photo: W M Nixon
The Ilen is now deservedly well-known for her continuing work with the Sailing Into Wellness organisation. But although the re-born Saoirse was brought inspiringly to life thanks to the generous funding of Hong Kong-based ex-Pat West Cork enthusiast Fred Kinmonth, his much-mourned death in November means that we still await news for the future of the re-born Saoirse. In the meantime, however, she has been sailed in style by master shipwright Liam Hegarty of Oldcourt who brought her so brightly back to life.
Ilen and the ice, in Greenland in 2019. Photo: Gary MacMahon
IRISH CRUISING CLUB CO-ORDINATION
Meanwhile, the marking of the Centenaries of O’Brien’s departure and return to the Royal Irish YC in Dun Laoghaire in 2023 and 2025 saw Ilen play the leading role, with 2025’s closing ceremonies being co-ordinated by Irish Cruising Club Rear Commodore Sally Cudmore of Cork. For although the 1929-founded ICC did not exist when O’Brien made the great voyage which was awarded the Royal Cruising Club’s premier trophy, the Challenge Cup, for 1923, ’24 and ’25, he topped the first ICC Membership List on its publication in the Autumn of 1929.
OLYMPIC CLASSES
2025, being an immediately post-Olympic year, there was a sense of pausing for breath among Ireland’s small but dedicated squad of Olympians,but Eve McMahon of Howth kept herself up in lights with a podium season which included winning Bronze in the ILCA 6 Worlds in China.
Eve McMahon of Howth kept herself up in lights with a podium season which included winning Bronze in the ILCA 6 Worlds in China Photo: Robert Deaves
CLONTARF CELEBRATIONS
The celebration of long-lived neighbourhood clubs was another feature of the year. Clontarf Yacht & Boat Club came into being in 1875, and its Sesquicentennial commemorations in 2025 saw a remarkable variety of events afloat and ashore, culminating in an all-Commodores dinner at which the Guest of Honour was someone who prefers to be known as Ned Guinness, but he can’t escape the fact that he’s also Lord Iveagh whose ancestor in the distinguished brewing family was first President of CY & BC.
150 years of Clontarf Y & BC. Ned Guinness, aka Lord Iveagh, receives Honorary Membership from Commodore Gerry Coonan.Photo: CY&BC
BUSY LARNE
Meanwhile up north, the ultimate “DIY can-do club”, East Antrim Boat Club at Larne, celebrated its 75th Anniversary and looked back on eight decades in which their most notable contribution to the larger sailing scene was probably through their impressive performance in the GP14 class.
The well-established Irish sailing scene rotated itself with the usual biennial pattern, with Johnny & Suzy Murphy’s J/109 Outrajeous from Howth winning the Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race in addition to many other prizes, while the First 50 Checkmate XX (Dave Cullen & Nigel Biggs, HYC & RIYC) was gilded with honours from the Sovereigns Cup at Kinsale.
Outrajeously successful – Johnny Murphy at centre, Suzie Murphy third left
The big event of 2025, the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta in July, saw Chris Johnston’s First 31.7 Prospect emerge as the clearest class overall winner to take the top prize, while across the bay in Howth the annual Lambay Race overall winner was Alan Pearson and Alan Blay’s Puppeteer 22 Trick or Treat.
A HUNDRED YEARS WITH ONE BOAT
The Classics have their own continually encouraging progress, with the 1887-founded Dublin Bay Water Wags celebrating a special Centenary. The Delany family have now been involved with the Water Wag Pansy since 1925, and though the current Main Man is Vincent Delany, he really does have some history to live up to, as his father Alf once raced the boat with Eric Tabarly as his shipmate.
Eric Tabarly and Alf Delany racing the Dublin Bay Water Wag Pansy, with which the Delany family have now been involved for a hundred years.
New Howth 17s are in various stages of completion still using he 1897 design, while the re-birth of the Dublin Bay 21s – originally of 1902 vintage – continues under the project inaugurated by Fionan de Barra and Hal Sisk, with the sixth (of seven) replacement hulls being turned by Steve Morris and his team in Kilrush Boatyard in October.
Three of the re-born, re-styled Dublin Bay 21s with the Bay in a good mood.
BOATS OF CHARACTER
Yet for those who would insist that modern boats are characterless by comparison with these classic classes, just consider for a moment the two winners of the ICRA Boat of the Year title, and the 2025 ISORA Championship. The ICRA titles were taken by Swuzzlebubble (IRC) and Bataleur (ECHO), both boats of individuality and character. And the ISORA Champion – after going right to the wire with the last race – was the Lombard 46 Pata Negra from Pwllheli, which looks like nothing else on earth (Pata Negra that is, not Pwllheli).
The highly individualistic-looking Lombard 46 Pata Negra, ISORA Champion 2025
HEADCASE HEAVING AHEAD
With the J/24 Worlds 2025 reasonably accessible in Plymouth in September, Cillian Dickson of Lough Ree YC with the Team-of-all the-Talents in Headcase sailed a textbook campaign to a very complete victory which came over as the natural development of the remarkable campaigns at home and abroad in recent years.
ILCA NUMBERS
Roos Wind of the Netherlands on her way to victory in the 2025 ILCA Under-21 World Championships on Dublin Bay Photo: Afloat
On the dinghy front, the much-loved ILCA continues to attract the biggest fleets, with upwards of 150 boats racing in the Nationals at Ballyholme with a 50th Anniversary celebration, with Max O’Hare (Royal St George YC) winning ILCA 4s, Sienna Wright (Howth YC) winning ILCA 6, and Croatian visitor Milan Vujasinovic winning ILCA 7. In August, Dun Laoghaire staged the 2025 ILCA Under-21 World Championships. Roos Wind, Ole Schweckendiek, and Omer Vered Vilenchik claimed the respective titles after a thrilling 12-race series.
INTERNATIONAL SCENE
Meanwhile on the international offshore scene, Swuzzlebubble’s near sister 2Farr owned by Patrick Boardman of Rush SC won the Half Ton Classics at Torbay with input from Rob O’Leary from Baltimore, while the Volvo 70 Tschuss 2 skippered by Johnny Mordaunt of Howth, with input from Nin O’Leary, was RORC Boat of the Year 2025.
Skippered by Johnny Mordaunt of Howth with helming input by Nin O’Leary of Crosshaven, the Volvo 70 Tschuss 2 was RORC Yacht of the Year 2025.
NEW-LOOK ALL-IRELAND
As for the new-look All-Ireland Championship with separate contests for dinghies and keelboats, Ger Owen of Wicklow won the dinghies racing in National 18s at Crosshaven, and Cillian Dickson of Lough Ree and the all-conquering World Champion J/24 Headcase crew won the keelboats racing J/80s at RIYC.
Lough Ree’s J/24 Champion Cillian Dickson (right) won the All-Ireland Keelboats
WORLD SAILING COMES TO TOWN
Then in early November, World Sailing cam to town with its Annual Conference in Dun Laoghaire, and in the absence of one of our own taking the prize, the acclaiming of Charlie Dalin as World Sailor 2025 was next best, as we are still in awe of the sheer style in tactics which he displayed in the 2023 Fastnet with Apivia.
TIMELESS AWE
But equally, we are in awe of Conor O’Brien’s achievement with Saoirse a hundred years ago, and can only conclude by quoting the words of cruising super-guru Claud Worth at the time:
“…anyone who knows anything of the sea, following the course of the vessel day by day on the chart, will realize the good seamanship, vigilance and endurance required to drive this little bluff-bowed vessel, with her foul uncoppered bottom, at speeds of150 to 170 miles a day, as well as the weight of wind and sea which must sometimes have been encountered…..
….. however common long ocean voyages in small yachts may become, Mr O’Brien will always be remembered for his voyage across the South Pacific and round the Horn.”
